An interview with Nora Bellows of Noni Designs

Nora Bellows with one of her Majolica bags. "It's one of the first I made." Not the red bag she talks about in this interview that she carries all the time, though. "The red bag
is quite a bit different, but that Majolica is a favorite of mine!"

Today's the release date for Nora Bellows' Spring line of her fabulous Noni bags. (See our events listing for this weekend or go to Yarn Garden's Web site for more on their release party on Sunday and upcoming Wednesday knitalongs for her Spring 2008 line; her patterns won't go on sale at the Yarn Garden until Sunday.)

Noni Designs was founded in 2005 with eight creative bags; now the Noni name is instantly recognized by most knitters into felting and/or bag patterns. Thankfully, Nora carved out some time in the hectic push of getting the pattern line ready to answer some questions on her knitting, felting, design process and what's coming up next (clothes for kids!).

Nora's mother taught her to knit when she was 12, but she didn't discover felted bags until 2000. "Her first bag was made from a simple pattern, but she immediately began to innovate. Soon, her unusual creations attracted the attention of customers in the Baltimore knit shop (Woolworks) where she worked ... to support her knitting habit. In addition, she began making bags exclusively for private commission and for sale in a very few small boutiques around the East Coast.

The camellia was Nora's first flower design.

"While at Woolworks, Nora also taught literature and composition at the University of Maryland, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and a Ph.D. in Renaissance English Literature. After the completion of her degree in 2004, she moved (for love!) to Austin, Texas, where interest in her bags came more from other knitters than those seeking to purchase them."

Do you remember your first knitting project? I believe my first project was a scarf. It may have been for my father (or it may be that my sister knit that scarf). In any case, it was a white scarf, very uneven tension, but he wore it for years, maybe until it wore out.

That first felted bag you knit in 2000, was it through a class or a pattern? Can you tell us a little bit about how you went from that to designing bags for boutiques? I was working at a shop called Woolworks in Baltimore and one of the owners came back from TNNA with a simple circular felted bag pattern and she made up a sample. I was enthralled. I immediately made one, too. I altered mine a little to be a backpack. I quickly started posing problems for myself and experimenting. I was completely hooked by the process of felting. I came into the shop almost every week with a different bag. The customers were as interested in seeing what I would carry as I was in making the bags. I started to get commissions from amongst the shop customers and also amongst some folks at the University of Maryland where I was teaching at the time and finishing my Ph.D.

Skinny Tube Baguette

Carpet bag

Then you moved to Texas and taught classes, eventually publishing your patterns? What was your first published pattern? I came out with several patterns at once. I was already more or less giving my patterns away in the classes I was teaching. It occurred to me, however, that it would make more sense to sell the patterns. I started with my flower patterns and then wrote down two bag patterns: Carpet Bag and Garden Party Bag. The Tube Baguette was my third pattern.

Do you have one that is the most popular? Or a personal favorite? I have observed that rectangular bags are more popular than round ones. This was a bit of a surprise for me, because some of my absolute favorites are the round bags. I LOVE the majolica bag and the harlequin, for example, but they don't seem to be as popular with the knitters. Perhaps because they are a tad harder to felt. But I can't say that I have an all time favorite. I have favorites of the moment, or the month. Right now I'm enchanted with the tulip tote. I want to carry it everywhere. I walked into a Starbucks and a woman stood up when she saw it. Her eyes got as big as saucers. That was great! I'm also loving the flamenco. I'm carrying that one, too. Usually I make bags but don't carry them, except every once in a while. I have a bag that I made very early on that I carry most often. It's red with lots of different colors of red. It has great big camellias on it. Some of my first camellias. I just love it so much it gets treated very badly. A bag has to be really great to make me carry one other than that one.

Majoilica

You seem to have very few bag designs that are NOT felted. Can you say why felting is so crucial to your process? Felting gives bags so much structure. That is what is so interesting to me: turning soft wool into something more three dimensional that keeps its form and structure. I like working in three dimensions. This is not to say that knitting without felting is not three dimensional, because of course it is. Successful garment design is when the designer can imagine a sweater on the human form, but this draping of a sweater over the body is quite different than the way that felt is stiffer and can keep a triangular shape, for example. I guess I see these stiffer three-dimensional forms as a canvas upon which to put compositions in flowers, or as the compositions themselves.

How has becoming a mother impacted your work? Well, quite simply I am going to start designing children's clothes. I plan to come out with a line of patterns for children's garments and accessories (and the occasional thing for Mom and Dad) this Fall. I'm working on some slightly felted garments (coats, hoodies) as well as some unfelted garments that are easy to wear and care for. Everything has to pass my little boy test. If Soma will wear it, then it passes. If he says it's itchy or starts fussing about something then it's back to the drawing board.

I was excited to see on your Web site that you're a twin (as I am too!). How do you and Laura work together? Right now Laura is concentrating on honing her skills as a jewelry maker, so we are hoping to collaborate on some projects. She is working on some bag jewelry and I hope to use those designs and inspiration for some bags. We'll see how it goes.

Fuchsia Market bag

Can you give us a small peek into your design process? I know creative sorts always hate it when they're asked where they get their inspirations, but do you find you have a certain way your bags go together? For example, which comes first, the flower or the shape? I get my inspiration from multiple places: I can be inspired by something I have seen; with the cherry blossom bag, I was inspired by the weeping cherry in front of my house, but also by Chinese paintings of cherry blossoms, by the cherry blossoms around the tidal basin in Washington, D.C., and by Chinese porcelains. When I was working on the Fuchsias, I went to nurseries, looked at fuchsias, studied color combinations and went through a lot of photographs. With regard to bags, I can get inspiration from a handle, or from a particular color combination. I might pose for myself a problem and get inspired that way. With the Tulip tote, I knew I wanted to do a new take on the classic LLBean tote. I knew I wanted it to be covered with tulips. So, I took those two things and put them together. I have to say I'm happy with the results.

Speaking of flowers, when did you start adding them to your bags? How did that come about? I started adding flowers to my bags from the very beginning. The first flower was the camellia, then came the spider chrysanthemum and the unfurling rose. I've been working on flowers ever since. I am more and more interested in making the flowers botanically accurate, to the degree that I can in this medium. I'm still exploring the limits of what I can do, and not do. I am interested to start combining techniques to push further what I can accomplish with a particular flower design. When I begin to design a new flower, I study botanical drawings and also actual flowers and try to achieve in the felt as much realism as I can.

The following are a few questions we like to ask all our interviews: What's on your needles these days? There is actually nothing on my needles right now, though there are lots of things that should be. I'm working on finishing some bags right now and making big plans for the next collection.

Are you a one-at-a-time knitter or do you have multiple projects going? I usually do have several things going at once. I am a fast knitter so I finish things as fast as I can, and lately it has been more one-at-a-time than not. But when I am left to my own devices, I work on multiple projects at once.

What was your favorite thing you ever knit? I have to say that I really enjoy knitting fair isle and I like complex floral patterns in bold colors. The first fair isle sweater I ever knit is a very fond memory. It got me started knitting again and I've never stopped since, so that's some love affair that sweater started!

Do you have a knitting tip you'd like to share? O, yes. I think so many knitters are afraid to make mistakes. I sort of hate making mistakes, too, but I think they are also what has made me the knitter I am. I have learned so so much from making mistakes and having to correct them. So, not only don't be afraid of making mistakes in the first place, but don't be afraid of fixing them, either. Nothing is so interesting as trouble. It makes for the best stories, the best knitting (in the end), and the best felting.

Still want to know more about Nora? Here's a great interview we found on New York Knits.